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Saturday, July 21, 2012

This week Nick started to have more meltdowns than he has had in a long time. They started getting fairly severe with lots of aggression and self injury. We have learned that these type of meltdowns are only caused by pain. We started with the flonase for three days. Then, after my meeting with his team at school I bought saline spray and zyrtec. We also had Claritin at home. I started with the nose sprays and Claritin, as well as Advil for pain. He was waking up every morning in a meltdown. I started taking notes of everything he did, ate, how long his meltdowns were, and what he did during them. Thursday at school he had 25 aggressions towards staff, and FORTY times he engaged in SIB.

The bruise he gave himself from smacking his leg with his hands.

By Friday, we had three appointments set up. I spent most of Friday morning on the phone with various people. I called his pediatrician first thing Friday morning and described what had been going on. We were able to get an appointment Friday afternoon! Of course, with Nick, that is a fiasco in and of itself. We had to be there at 3:15pm. We did not get seen until 3:30pm. It takes two of us to even go to the appointment with him. One to sign him in, and the other to stand guard over Nick. He still managed to get away from dad and nearly knock down one of the pictures in the waiting room. Then as hubby was putting up that picture, Nick ran off and was knocking down a heavier picture. I managed to save it, but as I was doing that, he started running down the hall. After nearly destroying the waiting room in one fell swoop, we had to wait to be seen. With Nick, waiting for long periods is not easy. Mike went up and talked to the receptionist about waiting in one of the exam rooms, which proved to be far better for ALL involved. To make a long story short, the doctor was able to do a throat culture (although it took FOUR of us to hold him down) and it came up positive for strep throat. UGH. Nick is once again put on Amoxicillin for ten days. Things today have not been much better. He has meltdowns at least every two-three hours as the Advil has worn off, even though it says "up to 8 hours". He is still congested in his sinuses, although they are not infected. During those meltdowns he has to be restrained because 1) he will come after me and smack me repeatedly and 2) he will injure himself by banging his head on anything around (walls and his bed are popular). He has already given himself a big bruise on his forehead the other night. I certainly hope things are much better tomorrow.

Thursday we got to see an ENT and get Nick tested for allergies. Hopefully, that will provide us with more clues.